


Someone Else's Dreaming

by ifnot_winter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Broken Families, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Episode Related, Episode: s01e16 Shadow, Ficlet, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, Introspection, John Winchester's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifnot_winter/pseuds/ifnot_winter
Summary: Defeat gnawed at him, at war with his proclivity to stare death in the face and laugh, but this inevitability was far more debilitating. Eventually, when the time was right, Dad would call for them, and they'd be back together again, to finally kill the thing that had killed Mom, and Jess. And the last of the common purpose binding them would fall away, and their newly reunited family would prove even more short-lived than before.+ + +Coda to 'Shadow.'





	Someone Else's Dreaming

Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish.

AN: This doesn't really seem finished to me. I had bigger plans for it, I think, but it didn't really pan out. I wrote it right after seeing the ep, but kept tweaking little bits and hoping inspiration for a bit more would come along.

Originally published 03-08-06, part of an ongoing project to shift all of my ancient fanworks to ao3.

\+ + +

**Someone Else's Dreaming**

_To the heart full of strings_  
_Heart full of finer things_  
_There is salvation out there_  
_There are reasons for us to care_  
  
_Hands on the wheel_  
_Tried hard to breathe and feel_  
_Cause going out's the easy part, I said going out's the easy part_  
  
_And if the Devil was a poet, I doubt that he would know it_  
_And I doubt that he could win your heart with simple words of flame_  
_Like love is just a prison if there is no one there to listen_  
_And the truth is shallow water if you learn nothing when it came..._  
  
\--'Heather's Like Sunday', Matthew Good Band ****  
  
\+ + +

The road stretched out beyond the transparent gold of the headlights like a strip torn from the night sky, the muted gleam of asphalt leading them on into endless nothing framed by the distant black silhouettes of trees and pieces of dreams so foolishly spoken and impossible to recapture and glue into some semblance of hope again. The skin around his wounds felt tight and surreal, the slow drying of blood like streaks of paint on his skin, and he found comfort in the shreds of that familiarity. The pain of the wounds themselves was negligible in the larger scheme of his past history with near-death and dismemberment, barely registered over the blade slowly being twisted over and over somewhere deep within, tied to each labored ex- and inhale from the passenger's seat, his brother's breath occasionally catching as collective bruises and clawmarks gave especially loud protest to being left so long untended.  
  
_"I'd do anything for you..."_ Anything, sure. Anything but stay. Nice speech, Sam. Really. Total bullshit. _"I'd do anything for you, but..."_  
  
Dean kept his eyes on the road, barely allowing himself to breathe for fear the air might be caught in his throat, trip over pain and adrenaline and all the words he'd carefully imprisoned. Perhaps even knock them loose, to tumble forth with all the gauche flair of chick-flick dialogue, overripe with angst and tears and so 'on the nose' even the mildest critic's ears would bleed.  
  
His soul felt as though it had been rubbed raw, chafed by the constrictions of the skin daring to hold him together when all he wanted was to fly apart and escape the slivers of naivete carving away at the tiny candle-flicker of his former devil-may-care brilliance. Defeat gnawed at him, at war with his proclivity to stare death in the face and laugh, but this inevitability was far more debilitating. Eventually, when the time was right, Dad would call for them, and they'd be back together again, to finally kill the thing that had killed Mom, and Jess. And the last of the common purpose binding them would fall away, and their newly reunited family would prove even more short-lived than before.  
  
Sam's announcement of his intention to go back to school had shaken Dean to the very foundations of his being. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, some part of him unable to process having the promise of peace, of completion, stripped away and burned to ash before his very eyes. The whole addition of seeing Dad and getting attacked by invisible hellspawn, then realizing they were far more hindrance than help and watching Dad drive away before they could get beyond basic pleasantries, was just the icing on the goddamned cake.  
  
He drove all night, the slow hands of dawn pulling the veils of shadow and stars away and burning Dean's gaze with sudden definition, his broken dreams morphing to patches of jagged evergreen and scrub oak, the mystery of them lifted to reveal simplicity of form, unexpectedly commonplace and thus uncommonly beautiful.

 

 


End file.
